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Dvorkovich and meeting with Rosneft's Sechin-tied investor relations chief. Andrey Baranov.
- The Court-approved surveillance of Page allowed FBI to collect valuable intelligence. The FISA renewals demonstrate that the FBI collected important investigative information and leads by conducting Court-approved surveillance. For instance,
DOJ's Transparency about Christopher Steele
Far from "omitting" material facts about Steele, as the Majority claims,[17] DOJ repeatedly informed the Court about Steele's background, credibility, and potential bias. DOJ explained in detail Steele's prior relationship with and compensation from the FBI; his credibility, reporting history, and source network; the fact of and reason for his termination as a source in late October 2016; and the likely political motivations of those who hired Steele.
- DOJ was transparent with Court about Steele's sourcing: The Committee Majority, which had earlier accused Obama Administration officials of improper "unmasking," faults DOJ for not revealing the names of specific U.S. persons and entities in the FISA application and subsequent renewals. In fact, DOJ appropriately upheld its longstanding practice of protecting U.S. citizen information by purposefully not "unmasking" US. person and entity names, unless they were themselves the subject of a counterintelligence investigation. DOJ instead used generic identifiers that provided the Court with more than sufficient information to understand the political context of Steele's research. In an extensive explanation to the Court, DOJ discloses that Steele:
- "was approached by an identified U.S. Person,[18] who indicated to Source #1 [Steele][19] that a U.S.-based law-firm[20] had hired the identified US. Person to conduct research regarding Candidate #1's[21] ties to Russia. (The identified U.S. Person and Source #1 have a long-standing business relationship.) The identified US. person hired Source #1 to conduct this research. The identified U.S. Person never advised Source #1 as to the motivation behind the research into Candidate #1's ties to Russia. The FBI speculates that the identified U. S. Person was likely looking for information that could be used to discredit Candidate #1's campaign."[22]
- Contrary to the Majority's assertion that DOJ fails to mention that Steele's research was commissioned by "political actors" to "obtain derogatory information on Donald Trump's ties to Russia,"[23] DOJ in fact informed the Court accurately that Steele was hired by
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